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Living in an overpriced is now a choice, not a requirement.

That wasn't always the case, as startup Founders like us would flock to cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York to find the capital and people we needed to build something incredible (I lived in all of them). We'd convince ourselves that our 800 square foot apartment (with roommates!) made sense because if we weren't here, we would never have a shot a startup glory!

And we were mostly right — for a time.

But the requirements of being in a big, overpriced city have changed dramatically. For the first time in startup history, we can do nearly all of the things we once did in a big city from the comfort of our own (much cheaper) home. In a new era of Slack, Social, and Z...

Fresh from graduating at the bottom of my class in high school, I packed my $800 orange Datsun and moved to some weird place I'd never heard of before called "Ohio" to go to college. Back then the Internet didn't exist as we now know it, so when you left the state (unless you called someone on their home line) — you no longer existed.

I went ghost for almost 4 years — no trips home, no holidays — nothing. I lost touch with most of my friends and family. But while they were wondering what prison I was incarcerated at, I was busy building one of the first Internet companies.

The company did well, and when I returned, I was a millionaire. Little did I know that from that point on none of my relationships would ever be the same. Here are the ha...

How much time do we spend preparing our spouses for our startup journey?

Do we assume they somehow magically understand the path we've chosen to follow? Do we know for sure that our sacrifices align with their goals? When is the last time we sat down and made ourselves 100% sure that we're still on the same page?

In a business where we spend so much time recruiting talent, pitching investors and selling customers, we often overlook the most important person we should be convincing to join our cause — our spouses.

Often the single most important person in our life hasn't been afforded the same time and attention as everyone else to understand exactly why we're going down this crazy path. Or perhaps they do, but they haven't been reminded in...

Remember Pokémon GO? Of course you do because it was all you heard about for a few quick months in the summer of 2016. With millions of people downloading and playing the game, retailers and restaurants leapt at the opportunity to sponsor in-game experiences. Players flocked from location to location to virtually battle one another or to catch new Pokémon, and numerous companies were able to cash in on quick marketing wins.

There’s a lesson here, though. It’s most likely been a while since Pokémon GO was part of a recent conversation. Chances are that businesses are also no longer investing a significant portion of their marketing budget into the app’s in-game advertising opportunities. Short-term wins absolutely exist, but instead of spend...

Becoming a Founder is often the first time our lives where the advice of others — even our parents — may not necessarily be useful advice.

That isn't to say getting feedback on our idea isn't important, it just means that we have to be hyper-aware about how we get feedback and who we're asking to evaluate our idea.

My (Insert Smart Person) says this is dumb. Is it?

The first mistake we make in letting others evaluate our idea is determining whether they are in fact qualified to be making this evaluation.

Let me put it this way: I'm Wil Schroter, Founder & CEO of Startups.com. I've started 9 startups and helped over 1 million Founders on our platform. If you come to me with an idea about how to take a screen-printing business to market, I'...

Here at Startups, we hate the term “free money.” But, it’s one that people throw around a lot when they’re talking about grants. The reason we don’t call small business grants “free money” is because they take a lot of work to get. And there’s a lot of competition, so oftentimes that work doesn’t even result in a payday. Sure, you don’t have to pay back a small business grant the way you do a business loan — but it’s certainly not “free money.”

However, we also understand that small business grants can really boost a startup, if they qualify. And it’s not like other forms of startup funding — like venture capital, angel investment, and even crowdfunding — don’t also take a lot of time and effort. So we thought we’d throw together some reso...

I have written the post on the 8 reasons that make me different as a millennial boss. I think Millennials are bad asses and can harness their power for good. Remember though that I am on the cusp of generations. I identify about half and half with Gen X and Millennials. I consider myself a bit of a generational fairy….. 🙂

That said, I also have a few bones to pick with my generation after watching and supervising my peers for the last 10 years. Please don’t take it personally, Millennials! I still love you….xoxo.

Here we go:

1. Complaining you worked 70 hours a week once you become salaried.

Every time I hear someone say this I envision myself with imaginary steam coming out of my ears. When I used to hear someone say this I would try to b...

When we talk about celebrating startup wins, it's not about a big funding round. It's the fact that we just made payroll again.

Along the way, we forget to celebrate those tiny wins. Instead, we get distracted by the day-to-day problems, the emotional roller coaster, and the grind that is startup life.

What Kind of Wins Should we Celebrate?

Every possible positive step.

We just shipped a feature. We increased site traffic by 10% over last month. Our last customer just sent us a glowing review to the team. Every last one.

Each of those victories compounds into the overall goal. When we overlook them, or worse, fail to recognize them within our team, we lose out on the opportunity to build positive morale and momentum.

In a startup, morale...

I believe in 5 years most designers won’t approach creating a brand the way they do now, and for good reason…

Creating a logo and all of the associated branding material requires a lot of experimenting.

Experimenting requires repetition and repetition wastes time.

As a brand designer myself, I wanted to quickly preview variations of a logo, typefaces, colors, and patterns all together on a variety of collateral items. I also wanted a way to then easily output these assets in ready-to-use formats that didn’t require hours of production work.

These tasks are tedious and could very easily be driven by software…not endless clicks of my mouse.

This is why we built Emblem.

Emblem was created to not only help non-designer types get started on thei...

Most of us Founders have never raised capital, so when we dig in for the first time, we're mostly guessing at how the game is played. And friends — it is indeed a game. The problem with this game is that as Founders, the odds are stacked way against us.

We actually make matters worse when we don't understand the rules, and instead revert back to our base instincts, which range from carpet bombing the investor with follow-ups to trying to translate "I think it's interesting" into 50 potential meanings, like a 16-year-old after their first date.

What we need is to be able to read the signals for what they are, and when we do, take our foot off the pedal if the signal says "stop" and jam the pedal when the signal is "yes."

Anything that's not ...